


Package Deal

by shelovestoship



Series: A Slow But Definite Progress [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, One-Shot, friendship feels, possibilities, post 4x13, sort of getting there MacRiley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelovestoship/pseuds/shelovestoship
Summary: It doesn't take the whole world. Sometimes you just need thatoneperson you can count on. Who you trust. And together, any problem can be solved.----“Maybe we should go to Yellowknife?”“Marshmallows and aurelia borealis?” she asked, surprised that he’d remembered. She wasn’t sure why, because Mac remembered everything. Everything important anyway.
Relationships: Macriley - Relationship, Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: A Slow But Definite Progress [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808032
Comments: 25
Kudos: 128





	Package Deal

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to leave my Magnum PI happy place for a bit (because one can only re-watch the same 40 episodes so many times) and ended up binge-watching all 4 seasons of MacGyver. Shipped Mac/Riley from ep.1 because they're just adorable together (I mean the whole gang is! I miss Jack! He was the best!) but was all like "no they're apparently not doing anything with this, well, that sucks" and then season 4 rolls around and WHAM, suddenly they are doing something with it?
> 
> Anyways, post 4x13, I just had to write something, ended up with this little one-shot to make me feel better until season 5, hope you enjoy!

**Package Deal**

She wasn’t sure when things had changed. Changed for her, of course, because nothing had changed for him. 

Maybe it had been Moldova, when he’d thrown himself down the stairs to stop her being crushed from the bomb. Or later as he shared that on every mission he went on, he saw it all going bad, saw himself die. 

Or perhaps when Aubrey had ended things with her and she’d known there was one person that would always be there for her and she’d gone to Mac’s house and he’d hugged her and she’d felt better. Like he’d MacGuvery-ed her heart with nothing but a hug.

It could even have been seeing him again at the tech store, looking handsome and calling her _Riles_ , while she was in her ugly grape colored staff t-shirt and knowing her life would have purpose again. Him offering to make her matches after her break-up with Billy. Or that time when she’d been poisoned and he’d saved her life almost three years ago. When he cradled her face and declared she was going to be alright.

Didn’t matter when it had happened. It had, and now she was dealing with it. The only way she knew how. 

With the imminent threat of Codex having been neutralized, she was getting herself - and her heart - the hell out of dodge. 

That meant moving. 

No longer living with Mac and Desi. Because that just kept breaking her heart, over and over. Just tiny little cracks but eventually, if she stayed, she’d end up worse than after she’d come to stay at the house, after Aubrey broke her heart.

She’d meant to find something weeks ago. But with everything going down with Codex it had been put on the back burner. Besides, finding a decent place in LA that was at a price she could afford and also at a convenient location was **hard**.

“Hey Riles, what you doing?” Mac asked, sitting down on the sofa next to her. 

“Nothing,” she said, closing the lid to her computer. “Nothing important anyway.”

“Right,” he said, clearly not buying that, but willing to let it go. “I was thinking, we should take a trip.”

She raised an eyebrow. Mac had been single-mindedly focused on Codex for so long now it felt odd to hear him express an interest in doing something not related to it.

“Where to?” she asked, trying to not wonder if the _we_ was her and Mac alone or the whole team.

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling. “Maybe we should go to Yellowknife?”

“Marshmallows and aurelia borealis?” she asked, surprised that he’d remembered. She wasn’t sure why, because Mac remembered everything. Everything important anyway. The fact that their fake-married undercover story was important enough to get space in his brain pleased her enormously. “I’m game. I mean, if anyone deserves a vacation, it’s us.”

He only nodded at that, seeming to get lost in thought. She opened her computer back up, clicking down the window with the apartment she’d been looking at and instead doing a search for Yellowknife. 

It sure looked pretty and with a cozy campsite and some marshmallows… she wouldn’t even mind having her actual honeymoon there. If she ever got married. The luck she tended to have with relationships she’d probably end up alone with a bunch of cats. Only she didn’t much like cats.

“Desi left last night,” he said after a bit, once more surprising her and kindling a small bit of hope in her chest.

She looked up from her screen. “Oh?”

“Packed her things. Said she couldn't trust me,” he said, looking at the wall. “I told her I loved her. Before everything went down. But she still...”

It hurt on so many levels. She felt terrible for Mac, because despite her own feelings for him, she’d wanted him to be happy. And if being with Desi made her happy she wanted that for him. So she hurt for him, for the loss of his relationship. 

Then she hurt for herself, because Mac telling Desi he loved her…well that meant everything she was feeling was just even more impossible. It meant even though Mac and Desi were broken up, she still didn’t have a shot.

She even hurt for Desi, who was her friend, and felt so betrayed she’d ended the relationship. 

Then she felt angry with them both for not figuring things out. At herself too, because for the tiny bit of stupid hope she’d felt when Mac said Desi had left. Even though she and Desi were friends she’d seen sudden _possibilities_ for her and Mac upon hearing she was gone. And that made her a terrible person, didn’t it?

She didn’t want to be a terrible person.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching over to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “Is it strange I feel just as betrayed? The more I’ve thought about it… I wanted her to trust me, I wanted her to...”

His eyes were focused on her, but he said nothing more. “What Mac?”

“I wanted her to do what you did, I guess,” he said, then ran his fingers through his hair and stood, restless. “I wanted her to trust me, to not doubt even when all signs pointed to me having turned.”

“I’m sure she-”

“No,” he said, shaking his head again. “During the past few days I realized, maybe I just need one person. One person I truly trust and together I know we can figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” she said, trying to not read too much into what he was saying. To hope that he meant she was that one person.

He sat back down next to her, and shrugged. “How to save the world?” He smiled. “How to get to Yellowknife? Roast the perfect marshmallow?”

She felt herself smile too as happiness bloomed in her chest. “I don’t know. The art of roasting marshmallows is pretty hard to master.”

They shared a grin even though they were both hurting. Him from so much worse things than her, she knew. The loss of his father, his aunt, even his mother and now Desi. The pressure of having the weight of the world on his shoulders, of worrying and wondering if all their efforts to take down Codex were going to be for nothing and they’d find some other way to hit their ‘reset’ button. What was her little bit of heartbreak compared to that?

“Hey Riles?” he said, putting an arm over the back of the sofa. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Just you being you,” he said as they locked eyes. “Trusting me.”

And suddenly she felt like he was looking right into her, seeing her. All of her, all that she was. All that she wanted, even though she knew she couldn’t have it. And in return she thought she could sense things in him. His loss, but also his hope and want for a better life for everyone, the planet. A happy future for himself too. A life she suddenly _knew_ he wanted her to always be a part of.

She blinked and looked back to the screen because she suddenly worried she might say or do something that would mess everything up. 

Or maybe that _he_ would. 

Only at the same time, she knew, nothing could mess them up. They were solid and whatever happened, they’d deal with it. Together. Be it terrorists, assassins, break ups or feelings.

So as scary as that look was it almost reassured her. It was almost like a promise. A promise of tomorrow, of the future. She turned back to him and found the intensity no longer there. It was just Mac and his beautiful baby blues looking back at her.

She smiled because intense souls-searching look or not, she was Mac’s person and he was hers. She knew him, he knew her. More than that they trusted, loved and had other’s backs and nothing in the world would ever change that. 

“No thanks necessary,” she said softly. “We’re a package deal, right?”

"Always."


End file.
